Page 204

Everyone except Saylah.

Her shadows kept flowing to the symbol, around the mirror, obscuring the reflective surface.

Sorin glanced at Cethin, who was watching his mother closely.

And then a dagger appeared in the goddess’s other hand. Before any of them could react, she had sliced her palm and was drawing a Mark on the glass of the mirror.

“Mother?” Cethin asked cautiously.

The goddess seemed to stumble before she sank to her knees, and Cethin lurched forward. Kailia’s hand on his arm had him pausing.

“Look,” Kailia whispered.

As the shadows receded, she stood there, her mother kneeling at her feet. Slowly, she lifted her eyes to his. Silver and glowing, wisps of shadows swirled faintly among them. Her shadows wound around her arms, starfire embers drifting among them. She was different. He could feel the power radiating off of her.

“Scarlett?” he said tentatively.

Her head tilted as she studied him. It took a moment. An excruciatingly long moment, where it seemed as though she were trying to remember why she knew that name.

Sorin swallowed thickly.Love?

Her lips tilted into a wicked smirk. His chest tightened, and he knew.

“Hello, Prince.”

He was moving, stepping around Saylah, where she still knelt on the ground, and taking her face in his hands.

“I was trying,” Scarlett said, her eyes swirling with shadows the same way Rayner’s swirled with smoke and ashes. “I was trying to come back to you. I heard you calling, and I—”

But she was cut off by his lips landing on hers. His tongue forced its way in, taking her mouth as he slid it along hers. One hand slid into her hair and tilted her head, angling it so he could take the kiss even deeper. His other hand slid down to her waist, pulling her into his chest, and she melted against him.

He pulled back a moment later, brushing light kisses along the corner of her mouth, her cheek, her temple. “I would have come for you,” he murmured into her hair.

“I know, Sorin,” she whispered, clinging to him. “I know.”

“How?”

She knew what he was asking. How had she done it? How had she found her way back? What exactly had she seen among the stars?

But before she answered, her gaze slid back to her mother, still kneeling on the ground. Saylah’s breathing was ragged, and Cethin was crouched beside her.

Scarlett swallowed, turning back to Sorin. “I could hear you calling to me. I felt…you and Rayner and Cethin. But the Chaos…” Something in her eyes shifted to fear. He could feel it down the bond, and it had him tightening his hold on her. “It wasn’t enough,” she whispered.

“What do you mean it wasn’t enough?” Cethin asked, looking up at them.

“We were right in assuming that the Chaos would be drawn to me because of the various kinds of Chaos I possess, but we were wrong in assuming that I would have enough to contain it,” she answered.

“But youarecontaining it,” Rayner said. “I can feel it. We can all feel it. The power in you is…”

“More than Saylah ever had,” Kailia said from where she stood beside Cethin.

“More than she has now,” Cethin added, clearly feeling her power wells with his own gifts.

“What does she have now?” Scarlett asked, twisting in Sorin’s hold to face them.

“Nothing,” Cethin said. “She has nothing left. Whatever she did to bring you back took it all.”

Saylah finally lifted her head, looking straight at Scarlett. Her eyes were dimmer, and when she lifted a hand to brush back her hair, Sorin noted a slight tremor.